The Core of the Sun (14 page)

PART II

Core of the Sun

VANNA/VERA

January 2017

Neulapää.

The coldness of the unheated rooms enfolds me like an oppressive cloak.

Our sparse luggage is standing orphaned on the living room floor. Even though I did visit the house during the short period that Harri and Manna lived here, seeing it after all this time I'm struck by how different it is from my real home, remembered from childhood. There's no trace of Aulikki's simple peasant furnishings, rag rugs, and checkered curtains; they've been replaced with deep shag carpets, ruffled pastel lampshades, decorative pillows piled on sofas, and shelves brimming with china figurines.

I peek into Aulikki's old room and recoil from the immense double bed, the rose-printed bedspread, and the ornate brass wall sconces. Manna's hand must have dug deep into Harri's pockets.

I carry my bags into my former bedroom, which has been made into a guest room. “If you have trouble sleeping in Aulikki's old room we can easily make up a bed on the sofa,” I tell Jare. “It is the size of a cruise ship, after all.”

He smiles and the air fills with that familiar smell that I still can't quite place, the one that reminds me of grilled tomatoes—sweet and charred and tart and sugary. “Sleeping under one blanket would save a lot of firewood,” Jare says. I stop and look at him. Is he serious? But he's already examining the woodstove, peeping inside and then laughing drily. “Welp.”

The stove's full of burnt paper.

“Oh for heaven's sake,” I say. “Nissilä must have had Manna feed the stove. Typical Manna logic—if paper's good for starting fires, then more paper must make the fire burn that much better.”

Jare goes to fetch some firewood from the shed. I find the fire shovel and start scooping the powdery gray ash and charred slips of paper into the fire pail. Among the scorched sheets is something that looks familiar.

A round red logo. I've seen it on kiosk signs and cashiers' counters in Tampere. The slips of paper are printed with grids that have X's marked on them. I find a half-destroyed piece with part of Harri Nissilä's name on it.

National Lottery tickets.

Hundreds of them.

There are some tickets with ten X's on them. It's normal to mark six. I know from the National Lottery ads that marking ten is called a “rake card” and it's a really expensive way to play because it almost doubles your chances of winning.

How was Nissilä able to afford all these lottery tickets? They're all paid for—I can see the entry stamps on the ones that aren't completely burned.

And why did he burn them? These weren't burned for warmth or as trash—this was a deliberate attempt to destroy the tickets. But what's the harm in playing the lottery? It's perfectly respectable. Lots of people do it, even elois.

Jare comes in from the shed with an armful of wood fragrant with sap.

“Look at these.” I spread the burnt tickets I've found on the metal floor guard in front of the stove. Jare is clearly startled. He looks as if I'd caught him doing something illicit. I smell a sawdust aroma of shame, then a fresh lakeshore breeze of relief. He crouches down, takes some of the singed bits of paper in his hand, turns them over, and wrinkles his brow.

“He must have spent thousands of marks. Maybe tens of thousands.”

“Look at the entry stamps. You can still see some of them. Most of them are from last summer. The time before Manna disappeared.”

“Nissilä couldn't afford this.”

“No, he couldn't.”

Silence.

Jare examines the tickets. “He had lucky numbers.”

“What does that mean?”

“He always marked the same ten numbers. Once you've chosen some specific set of numbers to play it can hook you for the rest of your life. You know it by heart. I'm sure Nissilä thought that if he changed his numbers or his system, or let even one round go by without playing, that would be the round when his lucky numbers came up.”

I don't know what all this means, except that it's clear that Manna's disappearance wasn't very carefully investigated. They didn't even look in the stove. Or if they did, they just saw some ashes and didn't bother to examine them.

I start to shiver uncontrollably, stand up, and rub my shoulders. The Cellar. The Cellar's quite close again, its dark doorway ready to swallow me, chew me up in its night-colored gums.

“Is everything all right?”

That's Jare's code for
Do you need a fix?
It's touching how he never asks it outright, let alone suggests I have a dose. He doesn't want to do anything that supports my habit. He has to let me make all the decisions when it comes to chili.

“What have we got?”

“I'll go look. And there's something I should probably tell you about.”

JARE REMEMBERS

August 2013

That summer in Neulapää changed the direction of my life.

I met you, V, and Manna and Aulikki. Old Lady Neulapää, that's what I called her in my mind.

Aulikki paid me a small salary twice a month. I would wait eagerly for payday, those few faded bills in some old used envelope. For some reason Aulikki never wanted to hand me a naked wad of money. Maybe she was protecting my fragile masco pride from the bald reminder that I had a woman for a boss.

I was given full room and board at Neulapää, and summer interns normally were either saving for something specific—putting money aside for car payments or saving up for a flashy leather jacket or a watch—or using their pay to splurge on health-taxed treats like sugar or meat. I always took my pay and got on that old bicycle that was kept next to the shed—yes, V, I know it was a woman's bike, but I swallowed my masco pride, since the alternative was a twenty-kilometer walk—and rode to Kaanaa. There was a little service station there at the crossroads and a sparsely stocked kiosk that sold newspapers, juice drinks, mineral water, and fruit sweets, as well as some basic groceries. I'm sure you remember that I always told Aulikki I was going for a bike ride and asked if she needed anything picked up from the kiosk while I was out. Sometimes she asked me to pick up some flour or salt. But I had a more important reason for going there: the kiosk sold National Lottery tickets and scratch cards.

I'd played the lottery a couple of times with pocket change before I came to Neulapää, and the very first time I played, I won. Not a large amount—four correct numbers—but enough to get paid ten times what I'd spent for the ticket. I'd made a 1,000 percent profit in no time at all! Getting rich was so easy if you just dared to take a little risk! I had a deep feeling of gratitude toward the Eusistocratic Republic of Finland. It was only natural that our fine society gave any bold, capable citizen a chance to grow wealthy without backbreaking labor.

I was intoxicated by the idea that every bill from my slim pay envelope that I sank into the National Lottery could multiply like a rabbit in heat. Tenfold at first, maybe a hundredfold next time, or ten thousand. Why save to buy a car when you can win enough in the lottery to walk right into the dealership and buy the shiniest, most modern car they've got and drive it off the lot and go and buy yourself a leather jacket nicer than anybody else has, buy a house, get a summer cottage, install a swimming pool?

I still remember that first win. I was sitting at home listening to the radio and writing the numbers down as they read them out. I was using a real notebook and a good pen, not just the margin of the newspaper—not for something this important. A few of the numbers immediately sounded familiar. I felt a sweet shiver down my spine as the voice on the radio said each number, like steps on a staircase leading toward a bright, surprising future. My heart pounded, and my vision almost went dim from the excitement. And when I looked at the ticket and saw those very numbers, just as I remembered them, the knowledge that I had won slugged me in the stomach like a fist. The feeling was dazzling, like nothing I'd ever felt before, as if a door had been opened for me leading to an endless land of opportunity. You really could win at this game! On the very first try! What a special pet of Lady Luck I was! I hadn't won a large sum yet, but I knew that this was just the beginning. I would learn more, figure out ways to choose the right numbers, look for omens, study statistics. I would become the king of the National Lottery. I wouldn't settle for just one jackpot; I was going to win over and over again!

I got my pay every other Friday. I divided it into two parts so I could play every week, telling myself I did it to maximize my chances, but in reality wanting to listen to the drawing every week on the radio and feel the tingle of excitement, the racing pulse, the rising adrenaline in my veins. If I'd spent my entire pay all at once, I wouldn't have had any money to play the following weekend, and I would have been forced to wait another whole week.

Every time I sat down on the edge of my narrow bed in the shed next to the portable radio Aulikki had put there for me, a stamped ticket in my hand, waiting for the drawing to begin, my heart beat itself nearly in two. It was thrilling, like a drug, almost mystical. The future hadn't happened yet; it lay dormant and pure and untouched just beyond the curtain of time. And when the curtain was pulled aside, there was a possibility—undeniable, perfect, just out of reach—that standing on the other side was the luminous goddess of luck, smiling at me. Even though almost every time the curtain was pulled aside there was nothing but dust and darkness, it didn't eat away my hope, because I'd managed to convince myself that every time I lost increased the statistical probability that I would one day win.

Because I was going to win. I was going to win a lot of money. That seemed self-evident. Even if the probability of winning the jackpot was vanishingly small,
someone
won every single time—it might as well be me. And if I didn't play I was turning aside that offering hand, that thrill of possibility.

Summer passed, and there were no new wins. But I was patient. I knew that my perseverance and my gambler's nerves were being tested; I just had to hang tough through my losses and not let them shake me if I wanted to win the big prize. Besides, if I had stopped playing then, after I'd invested so much, it would have meant that all the bets I'd already made had been thrown away.

Over the summer I also learned your real nature and I promised Aulikki that I would serve as a front for your book orders. One Monday I was supposed to go pick up your book delivery at the weekly post truck. I'd always gotten the money for the books from Aulikki, but she'd had some kind of unforeseen expense and wouldn't get any more money until the bank truck came on Thursday. She asked me if I could pay for the package myself—I'd been paid a couple of days earlier—and said she could reimburse me as soon as she'd made her withdrawal.

I had to tell her that I had not a mark in my pockets.

At first she was mostly concerned about how disappointed you would be about not getting your books until the next post truck. That bothered me, too, perhaps more than anything else. But then Aulikki asked in passing where I'd managed to spend all my money, since there wasn't really anything for sale around Neulapää that would interest a young masco. She kindheartedly supposed I was sending money to my parents. Or perhaps someone in my family was sick? I said with an overabundance of bravado that I had already won a considerable sum from the National Lottery and that I intended to repeat that success.

Old Lady Neulapää was quiet for a moment, giving me an appraising look. I could see from her expression that she really wanted to say something, perhaps scold me for my wastefulness—as if it were any of her business; it was my money, earned through hard work she'd seen me do with her own two eyes. Then she shrugged and went back to whatever she had been doing.

That evening, when the work was done and I'd washed up and was lying in bed reading that day's copy of
The Future of the Countryside
, I heard a tentative knock on the shed door. I remember I thought it was you, come to take me to task for the delay with the books, and I yelled, “Come in!” a bit reluctantly. But it was Aulikki.

She sat down on the stool in the corner and didn't hesitate for even a moment, as if she feared that if she didn't speak right away her resolution would fail her.

“Jare, we've trusted you and up till now you've been completely trustworthy. But I still wasn't sure if I should tell you about another secret. I've decided to tell you because we owe you a debt of gratitude—or we will, in any case, because I believe that when you go back to town you will keep your promise not to talk about us. You're a good boy, smart, ambitious, and obviously goodhearted. So I don't want things to go wrong in your life.”

On the little table by my bed were the all-important pen and notebook, and a lottery ticket with the numbers drawn that Saturday circled. There were a few random hits here and there. The best result I'd gotten was three correct numbers. Aulikki pointed at the page.

“The first time you played, you won. Not a big win. I'd guess about five or ten times what you paid. After that you haven't won anything.”

How the hell did she know that? She saw the look on my face and smiled drily.

“My late son, Vanna and Manna's father, moved in high places. Before he got the transfer to a wood export post in Spain that he so wanted, he used to have little summer parties here at Neulapää and invite the bureau higher-ups and their wives. I was glad to have them. It brought a bit of change to my solitary life. He hadn't yet met his wife, with whom he later moved to Spain, so he hosted the parties alone, and I would help with the serving and clearing the tables and other things not suited to a masco's dignity. It was at one of these parties that I heard a bit of conversation that wasn't meant for me to hear—for anyone to hear, in fact.”

She took a deep breath. “If you ever get caught spreading this information, you'll be in big trouble. Bigger than you can imagine.”

She got up and grabbed the lottery ticket from the table. “If you win, how will you get the money? There's no address here.”

“It's paid into your bank account.”

“And how does the Lottery Office know your account number?”

“When you bring in your ticket, you write down your identity number and they find your account with that.”

I didn't know what to think. Surely Aulikki wasn't so stupid that she didn't know these basic facts.

“The National Lottery Office has one of the only computers in Finland. It's huge, almost as big as the room it's in,” Aulikki said.

I knew that. The lottery was so popular that checking the millions of entries by hand would have been impossible. That was why they'd imported a computer. They kept it in a lead room so the dangerous radiation it emitted wouldn't harm the workers at the Lottery Office. There had been a lot of discussion of the computer in the papers. They said that although computers and cell phones and other technologies of the decadent democracies had been banned in Finland because of their high levels of carcinogenic radiation, with careful safety measures this one computer could be used in ways that supported our eusistocratic system without endangering public health.

Aulikki almost slammed the ticket down on the table.

“Most of the guests at the party had already left. It was late. I gathered up the plates and glasses and took them into the kitchen, and I heard my son talking in the entryway with a high-placed official. The man was just leaving—his wife was already waiting in the car. They thought they were alone. I was standing just inside the partly opened door and they couldn't see me.”

“What does this have to do with the National Lottery computer?” I said, starting to feel nervous and wondering if the old woman's head had gone soft.

“From the conversation I heard, I was left absolutely certain of one thing. That the National Lottery is not what it seems.”

I could only stare at her.

“The drawings aren't really drawings. They use the computer to search for numbers that will produce small wins for as many first-time players as possible and also keep the large jackpots to a minimum. They use the players' identity numbers to find their purchase histories and the computer determines when to allow them another win—some small amount that will encourage them to keep playing. They particularly give wins to people who've taken a break from playing and then come back. If they don't want to pay out the jackpot then the computer searches for numbers no one has chosen. From what I understand they do that whenever possible.”

“You mean if I keep playing, in a year I might get another tenfold win? After I've spent several hundred marks?”

“That's exactly how it works.”

I rubbed my face in surprise, or maybe more in anger. “Damn.” I looked at the lottery ticket and remembered the feeling I'd had when the man on the radio started reading off the numbers. That feeling of a curtain opening, a feeling in every cell of my body: the pleasurable pain, the racing heartbeat, the buzzing in my temples. A moment when anything was possible.

“All gambling is set up so the house wins.” I raised my voice without meaning to, because even though I believed what she'd told me, I still hoped it wasn't true.

“Of course. The National Lottery brings in a lot of money, so the government is keen to hook people on playing. But it also provides the Health Authority with an excellent registry of people who crave risk and excitement. The same people, in fact, who might get involved in all kinds of illegal things. It's not good to be on that registry. And besides, you're not playing for the money; you're playing for the feeling it gives you. If you keep playing it won't be long before there's no room for anything else in your life. You'll just be giving your money right back to the government, leaving you penniless. And harmless.”

And she left.

I was horrified, dumbfounded, at how right she was about me.

I've never told anyone about this. The moment I heard what she had to say, I realized it was something I shouldn't spread around.

I realized some other things, too. At first vaguely, then more and more clearly. That there were people who knew more than I did. People in high places, and from those high places they could see things that ordinary people can't see. Not just see them, but do things behind the scenes to influence my life in ways I couldn't predict.

That our eusistocratic society wasn't just a caring, protective big brother.

That there might be something desirable in the decadent democracies.

After that summer in Neulapää I started to listen more and more to rumors and whispers that I'd once thought were silly. Like stories about how to get out of Finland.